Thursday, July 25, 2013

24/07/2013

Following a bombing at a police station, Egypt's army chief has asked
Egyptians to give the military a mandate to end "terrorism" threatening
the country. People are supposed to take to the streets to show their
support.

General Abdel-Fatah al-Sissi called on Egyptians to hold mass
demonstrations at the end of the week as a sign of permission for the
military to battle "violence and terrorism."

"On Friday, every honorable and honest Egyptian must come out. Come out
and remind the whole world that you have a will and resolve of your
own," al-Sissi said during a televised speech he was giving during a
graduation ceremony at Cairo's military college. "Please, shoulder your
responsibility with me, your army and the police and show your size and
steadfastness in the face of what is going on," al-Sissi said.

A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood rejected the appeal to Egyptians soon after the speech.
"Your threat will not prevent millions from continuing to gather," Essam
Erian wrote on Facebook, according to the news agency AFP.

The Muslim Brotherhood has accused the transitional government of
targeting its members during mass demonstrations. On Wednesday, a
statement on the Islamist group's website alleged that plain-clothes
agents had fired live ammunition into the crowd at a pro-Morsi march,
killing two people. Emergency services only confirmed one death in the
incident.

Tensions have escalated as supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi
become more vocal in their calls for his reinstatement and more
deliberate in their rejection of the transitional government.

Violent
clashes have led to the deaths of over 100 people since the Egyptian
military removed the president from power.

Morsi's family has also joined the outrage felt by his supporters. On
Tuesday, they threatened to seek international justice if the military
continues to hold the deposed leader without charge. The ex-president
disappeared completely from public view and has not even been seen by
his family since his removal from power on July 3 by General al-Sissi.

Bombing was 'terrorism'

A bombing - condemned by the government as an act of terror - in the
Nile Delta city of Mansoura overnight prompted al-Sissi's call for public
support of military action against dissidents.

At least one person was killed when unidentified assailants detonated a
bomb at a security building in Mansour, which lies about 126 kilometers
(78 miles) north of the capital city, Cairo. The explosion wounded over
15 people.

"The Mansour terrorist incident will not cause Egypt's resolve to
waver," he said. "Egypt has triumphed in the war against terrorism
before and will win again today," presidential spokesman Ahmad
al-Muslimani said in a statement early Wednesday.

The head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, distanced the group
from the bombing, saying its activities were "peaceful." However, Badie
defended Egyptians' right to contest the removal of the ex-president.

"Our cause against the coup is fair, and we demand the return of legitimacy," the Brotherhood website quoted Badie as saying.

REUTERS

CAIRO (Reuters) - Supporters and opponents of ousted Egyptian
President Mohamed Mursi clashed in central Cairo on Monday, hurling
stones at each other as security forces fired tear gas to try to
disperse them, witnesses said.

State television said one person was killed and seven injured in the
worst violence in the Egyptian capital since July 16, when seven died
in confrontations.

Blood stains and broken glass littered the pavement between the
dueling sides, and injured people were whisked away from the clashes on
motorbikes.

State television said they had arrested seven Mursi supporters and
confiscated two guns from them. A Reuters correspondent also saw two
anti-Mursi activists holding homemade pistols, with the two sides
shooting fireworks at each other.

A few hundred protesters backing Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood movement
appeared to be trying to march on Tahrir Square, the epicenter of mass
demonstrations which led Egypt's army to oust the elected Islamist
leader on July 3.

"They fired on us with birdshot and pistols. They tried to overrun
the square." said Tarik Sabir, 41, an employee in a petrol company, who
was wounded in the thigh by birdshot.

Around 100 people have been killed in violence since the downfall of
Mursi earlier this month -- most of them Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

Monday's clashes were the latest instance of violence in and around
Tahrir square, a focal point for demonstrations since mass protests
there led to the downfall of veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak in February
2011.

Scant Protection As Christians Attacked in Several Cities

July 23, 2013

(New York) – Egyptian Christians have been
targeted in several attacks since the military’s ouster of former
President Mohamed Morsy. The authorities should urgently investigate the
attacks, hold the perpetrators to account, and determine whether the
police could have prevented or stopped the violence.

In the deadliest incident, on July 5, 2013, local residents brutally
beat to death four Christians inside their home as police and a mob of
residents surrounded the house, during a day of violence that erupted
after a Muslim was found deadin Naga Hassan, a village 10 kilometers
west of the city of Luxor in southern Egypt.

Local residents also wounded three others and destroyed at least 24
Christian-owned properties. Witnesses and the police told Human Rights
Watch that police did not stop a 17-hour anti-Christian rampage in the
village until after the men were killed. Human Rights Watch visited
Luxor and Naga Hassan, and interviewed at least 20 witnesses to the
violence.

“Egyptian security forces should be on high alert to prevent and halt
sectarian violence in the current tense and polarized situation,” said Nadim Houry,
acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Egypt’s religious
and political leaders should denounce the dangerous escalation of
sectarian attacks.”

Since Morsy’s ouster on July 3, at least six attacks on Christians
have taken place in governorates across Egypt, including Luxor, Marsa
Matrouh, Minya, North Sinai, Port Said, and Qena. In many of the
incidents, witnesses told Human Rights Watch that security forces failed
to take necessary action to prevent or stop the violence. Authorities
should hold accountable the people responsible for the sectarian
killings and attacks on houses of worship and property, and investigate
whether security forces took inadequate measures to prevent or stop the
attacks, Human Rights Watch said.

In Naga Hassan, a mob surrounded the homes of two Coptic Christians
after a Muslim was found dead and rumors spread that two Christian youth
had killed him. The mob killed four Christians and wounded others. Only
after the killings did the approximately 60 police present bring the
situation under control.

In an earlier incident, on July 3, Morsy supporters looted and burned
St. George’s Coptic Catholic church and al-Saleh church in the village
of Delga, in Minya, about 150 miles south of Cairo.The attacks injured
eight people – Christians and Muslims – a local media outlet reported. Police and army forces did not protect St. George’s during the attack and have not been there yet, its priest said.
Christian residents of Delga told reporters that most of the
Christians in the area had fled, afraid to return home and unsure
whether their homes have been burned.

In separate incidents in North Sinai on July 5, 6, and 11, unidentified
assailants killed three Coptic Christians, including a priest,
according to a witness Human Rights Watch interviewed and to media
accounts, though it was unclear whether they were targeted because of
their religion.

Other apparent sectarian attacks on Christian churches since Morsy’s
ouster took place in Marsa Matruh on July 3, where two witnesses told
Human Rights Watch that pro-Morsy protesters attacked St. Mary’s church,
set fire to a security booth outside the church, and attacked a police
station there, stealing two police vehicles. In Port Said on July 9,
masked men attacked St. Mina’s church, according to a local media report.

The only sectarian attack in which police appeared to have intervened
effectively was in Qena, on July 5. The police used teargas when Morsy
supporters attempted to attack a church, preventing the assailants from
inflicting damage on the building or injuring anyone inside, according
to a local media report.

Authorities in Egypt should ensure that prosecutors promptly and
impartially investigate allegations of sectarian violence, whether the
victims are Christian or Muslim, and bring prosecutions as appropriate,
Human Rights Watch said.

The authorities should also investigate the
adequacy of the police response to sectarian violence, and police
officers who fail to act appropriately should be held to account.

Religious and political leaders should speak out against sectarian
violence. State security forces should take measures to prevent
sectarian violence, uphold the rights of religious minorities and
facilitate the safe and voluntary return of people forced to flee their
homes as a result of sectarian attacks.

“The Egyptian government should make ending sectarian violence a
priority, or risk letting this deadly problem spiral out of control,”
Houry said. “Prosecutors should thoroughly investigate and prosecute
those responsible, including security forces, if they want to show they
are capable of preventing future bloodshed.”

The Luxor Area Attack

At least 20 witnesses who spoke to Human Rights Watch agreed that
problems in Naga Hassan, a village near Luxor with a large Christian
minority, started at about 2 a.m. on July 5, when the body of Hassan
Sidqi Hefni, a 52-year-old Muslim resident of Naga Hassan, washed up on
the bank of the Nile behind a local resident’s house.

The circumstances of Hefni’s death are still unclear. Residents told
Human Rights Watch that the villagers believed two young Christian men
seen in the area where Hefny’s body washed up on the riverbank, Majdi
Iskander, 18, and Shnouda Romani, 20, were responsible for the death.

A
local resident told Human Rights Watch that he woke up at about 2 a.m.
when he heard Hefni, whom he knew, crying for help. He saw Hefni in the
river, and a person he could not identify pushing him under the water,
while another person standing on the bank looked on. He said that it was
too dark for him to see the assailants.

Angry villagers began to gather when word spread of Hefni’s death,
until the crowd swelled to between 200 and 300 people. A police officer
said he saw villagers chase Iskander and Romani and surround the house
of Iskander’s neighbor, while other villagers attacked Christians’ homes
with stones and Molotov cocktails.

Iskander tried to hide on the roof;
Romani escaped. The police officer, who was standing in front of the
house where Iskander hid, said that some villagers managed to enter the
house between 4:30 and 5 a.m. and beat and choked Iskander until they
thought he was dead.

Although 15 or 16 officers were present, they could not control the
mob, he said. The police realized that Iskander was not dead. They
wrapped him in a blanket and took him in a Central Security Forces (CSF)
vehicle to the central Luxor hospital, in order to lead the angry
residents to believe he had died, the officer said.

Iskander was immediately transferred to Assiut hospital and treated
for choking wounds and internal bleeding from the beating, according to a
hospital employee that Human Rights Watch interviewed. At about 10
a.m., two police trucks arrived in Naga Hassan as the mob began to
disperse for Friday midday prayer.

A local priest told Human Rights Watch that he was on the phone with a
police officer from the police station at the nearby township of
Daba’aya from 6 a.m. until 10 a.m. to find out what was happening. He
then went to Naga Hassan, but the clashes seemed to have stopped and he
was reassured by the presence of the two police trucks.

“I returned [to
the church] smiling,” he said, “I thought it was all over.” He said that
at about 5 p.m., Christian town residents began calling him again,
“panic-stricken,” because mobs had again begun to form and attack their
homes.

Throughout the course of the day, groups of villagers also attacked,
set fire to, and looted as many as 110 Christian-owned homes in the
area, causing severe damage to 24 of them, according to witnesses and an
official in the prosecutor’s office. Residents of a nearby village
drove by on motorcycles and shot two other Christian residents of the
area at about 5 p.m., critically wounding one, Bolis Zaky Nassim,
according to the official in the prosecutor’s office, a hospital
admissions employee, and Nassim’s son, who witnessed the shooting.

At about 5 p.m., between 300 and 500 Muslim residents of Naga Hassan
and surrounding villages began to gather and head toward Naga Hassan’s
main street. At about 8 p.m., close to 50 men broke into the home of
Habib Noshi Habib and brutally beat to death two of his brothers,
Muharib Noshi Habib, 38, and Romani Noshi Habib, 36, and Rassem Tawadros
Aqladious, 56, who were seeking safety in the house. All suffered
serious head wounds among their injuries. Other men beat to death Emil
Nassim Sarufeem, 41, and attacked his nephew, Milad Emil Nassim, 25,
seriously wounding him, as they fled from the house.

Human Rights Watch reviewed admission records at the central Luxor
Hospital which initially received the bodies and documented severe brain
injuries and skull fractures to Romani Noshi Habib, who died two hours
after being admitted; slash wounds, skull fractures, and internal
bleeding to Emil Nassim Serufeem, who died at 7 a.m. the next morning;
and severe head injuries, including open head wounds and internal
bleeding, to Milad Emil Nassim, who survived the attack. Muharib Noshi
Habib and Rassem Tawadros Aqladious were dead on arrival, according to
the records, which did not detail their injuries.

Photographs of the bodies of the four deceased viewed by Human Rights
Watch showed numerous cuts and bruises that appear to have been made by
blunt objects.

Habib, Emil Nassim’s cousin, told Human Rights Watch that he hid from
the attackers in an inner courtyard under a bathroom window:

I woke up at 6 a.m. to a lot of
commotion. I live on Kobri al-Gaban street, the main street in Naga
Hassan, next to Emil [Nassim Serupheem]. I looked outside and saw
hundreds of people running by, carrying metal pipes, shovels, and
knives. My cousin Rafit Fowaz, who lives on the water, called me and
said that people attacked his house and were attacking other Christians’
houses. After a while things calmed down, but later in the day it all
started again. I live here with Romani and Moharib, my brothers, and my
friends Rassem and Emil and his nephew, Milad, also came to hide here.
Girgis, our other brother, fled to Aswan with his children.

At about 8 p.m., [name withheld] broke into my house with two other
men [one of whom he named]. At that point Emil and Milad escaped out the
back. There were about 20 people standing in front throwing Molotov
cocktails at the house, and suddenly men were streaming in, there must
have been about 50 of them. I watched as several attacked Moharib. They
beat him on his head and body with metal pipes and shovels. I ran and
hid in the small internal courtyard, under the bathroom window. I knew
when they were finished with Moharib because I heard them say, “There is
no God but God.” I also heard someone from outside say, “Yalla, finish
it off.” Judging from his accent he wasn’t from here.

Habib said that four police officers wearing civilian clothes refused
to help the men hiding in the house to escape. “There were 13 women and
7 men in the house, and many children,” Habib said. “They took the
women and the children in the police vehicles to the church, but they
wouldn’t take us.”

Although as many as 60 police officers eventually arrived in Naga
Hassan by around 6 p.m., they did not prevent the attackers from
entering the house or bring the situation under control until after the
four men had been killed. A local police officer told Human Rights Watch
that the Luxor security directorate did not send more forces to the
scene because of a protest taking place in front of Luxor’s local
government building that day.

A senior local police officer told Human Rights Watch that they had
tried to control the mob, but without success. He said that seven or
eight high-ranking police officers and about 60 CSF officers from
Daba’aya and Luxor shot teargas and used batons against the mob
surrounding the houses, but could not control the mob until after the
four men were killed. “I didn’t know what to do,” the officer told Human
Rights Watch:

Put yourself in my position, and ask
yourself two questions. First, do you fire live fire on those people
outside? Who will be killed, the people outside or inside? Second, as a
police officer, you can’t do anything without orders. What do you do if
you don’t get an order that will allow you to take more action?

Maj. Khalid Mamdouh, Luxor’s director of security and the officer in
charge of the police and CSF deployed in Naga Hassan on July 5, told
Human Rights Watch that there was “no way” police could have controlled
the situation. “These people do these things all the time, they are
stupid people,” he said. “There was no reason for the police to take any
special measures, it’s not [the police’s] job to stop killings, we just
investigate afterward.”

Mamdouh, who said he was transferred from Cairo to the Luxor security
directorate in early July, denied any sectarian dimension to the
killings, and attributed the violence to the “savagery” of the people in
the area. “You’ll see, come back in a month and everyone will be
telling you that nothing ever happened here,” he said.

Habib said that an investigator in the Luxor prosecutor’s office
briefly visited Naga Hassan the day after the attack, and he gave him
the names of 18 men he saw participate in the attacks. One he identified
is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Habib also said he told the
prosecutor he believed police were involved in the attack, but on July
10, when the prosecutor called Habib to Luxor for another interview, the
prosecutor did not question Habib about police intervention in the
incident.

An official in the Luxor public prosecutor’s office, who declined to be
named, told Human Rights Watch that according to the reports they
received, throughout the day villagers attacked the homes of Christian
residents with stones, pipes, and Molotov cocktails, damaging 24 homes,
both early in the morning as villagers chased Iskander, and again
between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m.

The official told Human Rights Watch that they were investigating the
murders and property destruction but did not intend to investigate
security forces’ failure to contain the violence and prevent further
violence, which escalated over a 17-hour period without any effective
police intervention. He said that as of July 13, 10 people were suspects
in the killings of the 4 men, and 4 of the 10 were in detention.
Another 26 people, 12 of whom are detained pending further
investigation, are suspected of participating in looting and destroying
property in Christian-owned homes.

“Until now there is no probe into police behavior, and there won’t be,”
the prosecution official said. “We are taking decisive measures to make
sure nothing like this ever happens again, but the police were not at
fault. They saved people. If they hadn’t, the whole town would have gone
up in flames. There will not be any investigation into police failures,
because there is no need.”

Muslim residents also told Human Rights Watch that police arrested
between 45 and 50 men for the July 5 attacks, 7 of whom they held for 5
days without a detention order by prosecutors and who were then released
without charge. The Muslim residents said they did not know the basis
for the arrests of the men, and considered them to be “random.”

They alleged that police had used excessive force in carrying out
several of the arrests. Hamdi Ali Mohamed, 29, told Human Rights Watch
that police officers arrested him at 12:30 a.m. on July 6, after he got
into a verbal altercation with an officer who was playing a recording of
Quran verses over the village mosque’s loudspeaker at about 9:30 p.m.,
shortly after the four men were killed. “I told him it was provocative,
and that it wasn’t the right time,” Mohamed said. “At about 11:30 p.m.,
three officers arrested me in the street – two to hold my arms, and one
to beat me. My gallabaya [traditional long shirt] still has blood stains on it from the beating.”

Mohamed Abdel-Mohsen, 32, told Human Rights Watch that police broke
into his house at 1:30 a.m. on July 6, while he and his two brothers,
Mahmoud, 28, and Ahmed, 31 were sleeping. He said police beat his
brothers and arrested them. “They kicked in the door, and broke all the
lights in the house, yelling insults at my brothers the whole time,”
Abdel-Mohsen said. “They handcuffed them and beat them with clubs and
shoes, then took them into the street and beat them more there.” He said
his brothers were being detained, pending investigation, in the Awameya
police station.

Another village resident who declined to be named said he saw police
officers beat Mohamed Bughdadi Rashad, 28, on the side of his head with a
gun as he arrested him.

After the attacks on July 5, many of Naga Hassan’s Christians fled the
town. Priests at a church in Daba’aya told Human Rights Watch that 40
Christian families sought refuge in the church. Of these, 10 families
are still in the church, some because their homes are destroyed and
uninhabitable, and others because they are afraid to return out of fear
of reprisals.

The Minya Area Attack

On July 3, Morsy supporters looted and burned St. George’s Coptic
Catholic church and al-Saleh church in the village of Delga, in Minya,
about 150 miles south of Cairo.The attacks injured eight people –
Christians and Muslims – a local media outlet, al-Masry al-Youm, reported.

Father Ayoub Youssef of St. George’s church told Human Rights Watch
that on July 2, a group of Morsy supporters gathered close to the church
shouting anti-Christian slogans. “They were shouting, ‘Islamic!
Islamic! Egypt is Islamic, despite what the Christians want!’ and
‘Christians are against the revolutionaries!’” Youssef said.

The following day, Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi announced on television
the removal of Morsy from power. Al-Sissi was flanked by Egyptian
political and religious leaders including the head of the Coptic Church,
Pope Tawadros. Youssef said that immediately following al-Sissi’s
declaration,Morsy supporters attacked and looted the church and then set
it on fire:

Five minutes after the army’s statement,
and once Pope Towadros started to talk, a group of more than 500 people
attacked the three-story building. I live on the third floor. They were
chanting “Sissi, Morsy is my president!” They looted the place taking
everything in the nursery, gift shop, and library. They even took the
water pump, the lamps, the electrical wires. They completely looted the
place and then they set it ablaze.

Youssef said that later that evening he went to the police station to
file a report. When he returned home he found that his apartment above
the church had been robbed. “They took my personal belongings and my
books and everything,” he said. “And what they couldn’t take, they
vandalized. That night, they also looted the church and raided the homes
of seven or eight Copts.”

He told Human Rights Watch that one of the Coptic houses raided on July
3 was threateningly daubed with the words, “This is the house of
Talayfas,” the name of a Coptic family in Delga. Tharwat Bekhit, a local
Coptic lawyer, told Human Rights Watch that mobs also looted 12
Coptic-owned shops, including gold shops and stationery and grocery
stores.

Police and army forces did not protect the church during the attack and
have not been there yet, Youssef said, despite his repeated calls for
protection. Prosecutors have apparently not yet begun to investigate.
“The few officers who were protecting the church left as soon as the
crowds approached,” he said. “I called the police, the military, anyone I
could possibly reach, but no one has yet come to help.”

Bekhit told Human Rights Watch that the same group of people who
attacked St. George’s shot at al-Saleh Church, but that no one was
injured.

Christian residents of Delga told al-Masry al-Youm that most of the
Christians in the area had fled, afraid to return home and unsure
whether their homes have been burned.

Other Attacks on Christians

In separate incidents in North Sinai on July 5, 6, and 11, unidentified
assailants killed three Coptic Christians, though it was unclear
whether they were targeted because of their religion. Unidentified armed
men kidnapped Magdy Lamei Sama'ei, a Christian salesman of power tools
on July 5 in Sheikh Zuwaid city, near North Sinai’s border with the Gaza
Strip. On July 11, Lamei’s body was found decapitated in a graveyard in
Sheikh Zuweid after kidnappers demanded a ransom equivalent to
US$70,000.

On July 11, security sources reported the killing of another Christian
merchant, 60-year-old Magdy Habashi, abducted by unidentified gunmen on
July 6 in Sheikh Zuwaid. His decapitated body was later found in a
cemetery.

And on the afternoon of July 6 in Arish, three masked gunmen repeatedly
and fatally shot Father Mina Aboud, a Coptic priest, as he was driving
by an outdoor market.

A woman who lives in an apartment just above where the shooting occurred, told Human Rights Watch:

On July 6, at 1:30 or 2 p.m. I heard
gunshots, so I ran to the balcony to see what was happening. I saw a
white Verna car passing a gray car and blocking the way. Two masked men
got out of the [Verna] car and were shooting at the [gray] car. Another
masked man was standing by. They opened the gray car’s door and shot the
man inside, then threw him out, took his car and left. I screamed from
the balcony and people started gathering around the body. I went
downstairs and I saw him lying on the ground. [I saw where he] was shot
in the neck, chest, and leg. It all took less than 10 minutes.

Other apparent sectarian attacks on Christian churches since Morsy’s
ouster took place in Marsa Matruh in the north west of Egypt, on July 3,
where pro-Morsy protesters attack St. Mary’s church, set fire to a
security booth outside the church, and attacked a police station in
al-Dabaa, a neighborhood in Marsa Matruh, stealing two police vehicles.
In the Suez Canal city of Port Said on July 9, masked men attacked St.
Mina’s church. The police were responsive to a sectarian attack in Qena,
in southern Egypt, on July 5, intervening with teargas when Morsy
supporters attempted to attack a church, preventing the assailants from
inflicting damage on the building or injuring anyone inside.

Since the events of June 30, divisive fault lines have emerged within
the country’s trade unions and professional syndicates, with leading
members of these associations taking sides with the new ruling elites or
former President Mohamed Morsi’s ousted regime.

Unions and syndicates have been brought to the forefront of this
ongoing conflict, as their leadership, loyalties and politics all come
under question.

On July 2, a call for a general strike against the Morsi regime issued
by the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) failed to
materialize. EFITU’s presidency has since expressed support for the new
ruling elites, endorsed by the military council.

On the other hand, prior to and since Morsi’s ouster on July 3, a
number of syndicates have moved to show their support for the Islamist
president.

Before Morsi’s ascent to power, the Muslim Brotherhood had a negligible
presence within Egypt’s blue-collar labor unions, but was tremendously
influential within the white-collar professional syndicates.

The
Brotherhood has historically maintained a strong presence in the
Doctors, Dentists, Pharmacists, Veterinarians, Lawyers, Engineers and
Teachers Syndicates, winning elections in many of these associations and
controlling their boards.

Now, having lost control of the executive and legislative branches of
the state, the Brotherhood is resorting to its historic base of power,
and, perhaps, their last remaining political refuge — the professional
syndicates.

According to Amr al-Shoura of the independent Doctors Without Rights
group, the Federation of Professional Syndicates — consisting of some 18
associations — “and especially the Doctors and Pharmacists Syndicates
have been and still are actively mobilizing their forces against the
June 30 movement, and in support of Morsi.”

Shoura pointed to the bloody events of July 8, where more than 50
pro-Morsi protesters were shot dead by military forces and hundreds of
others were injured outside the Republican Guard headquarters, where the
ousted president was reportedly being detained.

The following day, a press conference was held at the Doctors
Syndicate, where members of the Brotherhood-controlled Doctors for Egypt
group announced the formation of a fact finding committee to
investigate what it called a “massacre.”

According to Brotherhood sources, at least 85 protesters were shot dead
in the incident and more than 1,000 were injured — nearly all of whom
were Morsi supporters. According to the Republican Guards and Ministry
of Health, though, only 52 were killed and over 200 injured in the
incident, including both security forces and protesters.

Independent investigations conducted by the Doctors Without Rights
group suggest that “the actual number of casualties may be somewhere
between the figures issued by both the Brotherhood and the Ministry of
Health. The number of fatalities could be subject to increase,” Shoura
says.

He adds that both sides of the conflict were involved in deliberate misinformation campaigns.

“Brotherhood members screened photos and videos during their press
conference at the syndicate in which they claimed that women and minors
were killed in these clashes. This has proven to be misleading and
untrue,” asserts Shoura. Images of dead women and children from the
Syrian civil war were allegedly used as Brotherhood propaganda claiming
that they were killed by Egyptian security forces.

On the other hand, a media blackout appears to have been imposed on many hospitals who received casualties from these clashes.

“While we strongly denounce the violence and bloodshed, we are wary of
the politicized news and statistics coming from both the Brotherhood
side and the army’s side,” Shoura adds.

The Doctors Syndicate has announced that it would provide LE5,000 to
the families of each of those “martyred” by the Republican Guards.

According to Brotherhood member Abdallah al-Keryoni, the Republican
Guards clashes necessitated an intervention by the syndicate.

“Two doctors were shot dead by Republican Guards, another nine were
injured after having been shot with live ammunition, and several other
doctors were arrested during these events,” he alleges.

“The function of the Doctors Syndicate is to support physicians and to
stand up for their human rights. The syndicate is supposed to engage
itself in political issues pertaining to health care and doctors’ rights
nationwide,” Keryoni says.

Doctors Syndicate President Khairi Abdel Dayyem is careful to note that
the syndicate has no political position on the situation. “The
syndicate takes no official stance regarding the events of June 30,” he
states.

Abdel Dayyem, a member of the Brotherhood-dominated Doctors for Egypt
coalition, angrily seeks to distance himself from the Islamist group. He
insists that he is an independent figure, and not a Brotherhood member.

“The syndicate does not take political stances,” he loudly asserts
while speaking to Mada Masr. “Every syndicate member has their own
political position.”

Syndicate actions, however, are entertained by the Brotherhood as a
possible tool of pressure. Keryoni notes that the Brotherhood is
“deliberating whether or not it should resort to syndicate strikes as
part of their campaign of resistance against this military coup.

“This must be a decision taken by the syndicate’s general assembly. The
idea of strikes has been proposed, but our position has not yet been
determined.”

The Brotherhood-dominated syndicate councils opposed a series of
strikes spearheaded by independent and opposition doctors from May 2011
to March 2013.

In the longer term, Keryoni explains that the Brotherhood is still
studying its position as to whether it will boycott or participate in
upcoming syndicate elections.

Meanwhile, a physician from Doctors Without Rights who asked to remain
anonymous says, “We will seek to purge our general and branch syndicates
of the Brotherhood’s control. We are discussing the possibility of
holding early syndicate elections in order to oust those who have
obstructed our freedoms and have deprived the Egyptian people of their
rights to proper medical attention and a sufficient health care budget.”

Doctors Without Rights has repeatedly sought to raise the health care
allocation in the national budget from its present figure of less than 4
percent up to 15 percent.

And the anti-Brotherhood sentiment at some levels of the syndicate is translating itself beyond the scope of elections.

According to Shoura, a recent initiative launched by anti-Brotherhood
doctors in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, called Rebellion of Doctors,
seeks to purge elements loyal to this Islamist group from their branch
syndicate by calling for early elections to unseat Morsi loyalists.

This initiative is said to be inspired by the Tamarod petition campaign
that claims to have collected 22 million signatures demanding Morsi’s
ouster and early presidential elections, which sparked the massive June
30 protests that ultimately led to his downfall.

A spin-off campaign called Tamarod Fayoum has similarly sought to purge
the Teachers Syndicate of the Brotherhood’s presence by collecting
signatures and demanding early elections.

Similarly, on Sunday, the Popular National Alliance was established
with 15 different professional syndicates and associations with the aim
of "defending the gains of the January 25 and June 30 revolutions, and
supporting the political road-map announced by the Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces."

Chief figures within the alliance include head of the Lawyers Syndicate
Sameh Ashour, former Supreme Constitutional Court Vice President Tahani
al-Gebali and writer Mohamed Salmawi.

Several different unions and syndicates participated in the mass
protests of June 30, took part in anti-Morsi marches, and pitched their
tents in squares and protest sites across the country. Nevertheless,
conflicts have emerged even within the ranks of those associations that
stood up against the Morsi regime.

A call for a general strike among transport workers was issued on July 2
by the EFITU and circulated online. This call was issued in light of
“the failure in realizing the objectives of the January 25 revolution —
bread, freedom and social justice.”

But this general strike never got off the ground.

The invitation to strike had underlined that workers should utilize
their weapon of work stoppage against “the creeping Brotherhoodization
of the labor and trade union movements being facilitated through the
office of the minister of manpower,” wrote the Brotherhood’s Khaled
al-Azhary.

Both Morsi and Azhary were accused of attempting to coopt the
state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) and bringing it
under the Brotherhood’s sway.

Shortly after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces deposed Morsi on
July 3, the presidency of the EFITU issued a statement praising the
Armed Forces and their role in the “June 30 revolution,” while also
calling on workers to forfeit their right to strike. EFITU President
Kamal Abu Eita wrote that “workers who were champions of the strike
under the previous regime should now become champions of production.”

But Abu Eita, named the new minister of manpower on Monday by interim
Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi, isn’t the only representative of the
independent unions movement.

On July 10, EFITU council member Fatma Ramadan issued a rebuttal to Abu
Eita’s statement. Ramadan insisted that “Egypt’s workers must never
sacrifice their right to strike.”

Ramadan told Mada Masr that Abu Eita unilaterally issued his statement without conferring with other EFITU council members.

“As a union federation our role must be to uphold all workers’ rights,
including the right to strike. Workers can reclaim their rights and
freedoms only if they retain their right to strike — as a weapon by
which to confront labor violations and employers’ abuses,” Ramadan says.
“As unionists, we cannot possibly call on workers to protect the
interests of businessmen by forfeiting labor rights under the pretext of
bolstering the national economy.”

Ramadan views the June 30 movement as “an uprising-turned-coup. It
lacks both a unified leadership and clear aims. SCAF, along with
right-wing elements and remnants of the Mubarak regime, appear to be
taking over this movement, and may turn June 30 from an uprising to a
counter-revolution.”

Associated Press

Egyptian media embrace military

Jul 14, 2013

Paul Schemm

CAIRO – When autocrat Hosni Mubarak
fell after popular protests in 2011, journalist Sabah Hamamou hoped for
change at her newspaper, Al-Ahram, the state-owned media flagship with
an editorial line firmly controlled by the regime.

Hamamou and some of her fellow journalists held demonstrations,
issued petitions and pressed editors for the paper to break from state
dictates and adopt independent, objective coverage.

Change never came. First, the military rulers who took over after
Mubarak tightly controlled the paper. Once Mohammed Morsi became
president, his Muslim Brotherhood stepped in and pushed coverage their
direction.

“What happened was they just put in their people in Al-Ahram and
other state institutions, and nobody tried to reform the institutions
themselves,” Hamamou said. “The saying goes if you are confused about
who is ruling Egypt, just look at the headlines of Al-Ahram.”

Now Hamamou is dismayed to see the paper and other state media
unquestionably embracing the military after its coup that ousted Morsi
on July 3, following protests by millions around the country demanding
his removal.

It’s not only state media. Independent TV stations and newspapers
have also enthusiastically backed the military and its crackdown on the
Brotherhood, which included shutting down four Islamist TV stations.

Their full-throated support reflects how convinced they became over
Morsi’s year that the Brotherhood were fundamentally anti-democratic and
intertwined with violent extremists.

Independent stations thrived after Mubarak’s fall, usually touting
their advocacy for democratic principles. Many, including several owned
by wealthy opponents of the Islamists, were deeply critical of Morsi.
They raised the alarm over signs of the Brotherhood monopolizing power,
infringements of press freedoms and civil liberties, violent hate speech
from his hardline allies — and over the killing of protesters by police
under his administration.

In recent days, however, they have been uncritical of acts by the military.

After more than 50 pro-Morsi protesters were shot to death by
security forces in clashes last week, a star announcer on independent
CBC TV, Lamis Hadidi — once a spokeswoman for Mubarak’s 2005 re-election
campaign — cautioned viewers not to think of the dead as “martyrs.”

Instead, she blamed the Islamists for “a new Brotherhood massacre.”

Egypt’s media landscape has long been sharply partisan. The
Brotherhood’s TV station and others run by their ultraconservative
Islamist allies — now off the air — were whole-heartedly in Morsi’s
camp.

In recent weeks, the Brotherhood’s party has posted pictures of
children killed in Syria’s civil war, presenting them as Egyptian
Brotherhood dead.

Al-Jazeera TV, owned by Brotherhood ally Qatar, was also accused of
strongly pro-Morsi coverage. Since protests against him began, the
station has covered mass rallies in his support more extensively than
those against him — the mirror image of some anti-Morsi stations’
coverage. Six staffers quit, accusing it of bias.

“At the end of the day, as much as journalism is supposed to be about
a lack of bias, the opinion journalism model has taken over the media,”
said Mahmoud Salem, an Egyptian writer and political analyst — and
sharp critic of the Brotherhood. “Everyone wants to be a cheerleader for
his or her team.”

Now that has turned into lashing out at the other team as well.

During a military news conference last week, a journalist from the
state news agency stood up and demanded Al-Jazeera reporters be
excluded.The station’s reporters walked out to chants of “Out! Out!”
from others in the crowd. They also applauded repeatedly in reaction to
the military spokesman’s statements.

Earlier, security forces raided the offices of the local Al-Jazeera
affiliate, detaining its staff briefly and holding its manager and chief
engineer for several days. On Friday, Al-Jazeera reported that a
correspondent and a three-member camera team were detained by the
military while filming in the city of Suez and were being questioned.

A senior police official late last week also ordered The Associated
Press to stop providing the station live television footage from Tahrir
Square.

The AP dispatched two executives to Cairo to protest the suppression.
After a series of meetings with senior government officials, who
stressed the shutdown was not official government policy, the AP live
video service to Al-Jazeera was restored Wednesday.

In a statement, Al-Jazeera said it was being targeted by a “crackdown on information” and denied bias.
“We’ve always given all sides of opinion airtime on Al-Jazeera, it’s
our mantra,” it said. “Large sections of the Egyptian media object to
this open-minded ethos.”

Atlanta-based CNN has also come under criticism and its journalists
have been harassed because many in the anti-Morsi camp accused it of a
pro-Brotherhood bias after it called his ouster a coup. Protesters have
carried signs against the network in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

“What specifically brought attention to CNN is that we called this a
coup early on,” said Tony Maddox, director of CNN International. “Some
people don’t want it described as that, but I’m afraid that is what it
is and we will call it as we see it.”

Lina Atallah, editor-in-chief of a new online news site Mada Masr,
said there was increased pressure on journalists to toe the line. She
pointed to coverage of the protester killings last week, which repeated
the military’s version of the violence with few independent witness
accounts.

“What’s scary about this time around in the media performance is that there is much more agenda-setting from above,” she said.

Media emphasizing independent reporting struggle for funding in a
landscape dominated by outlets owned by the state or by well-funded
movements like the Islamists or by businessmen with an agenda.

Mada Masr is one attempt to create such an outlet, founded by a group of young journalists.

Publisher Hisham Kassem is attempting another, with his plans for a
new independent daily, Al-Gomhouriya Al-Gadida, or the New Republic.

He said he has to fend off offers from old regime sympathizers on one
hand and Brotherhood members on the other to buy it up and use it as a
platform for their views.

During Mubarak’s last years in power, Kassem helmed Al-Masry Al-Youm,
one of the first independent papers that avoided the sycophancy of the
state press and the unreliable shrillness of opposition party
newspapers.

In state media such as Al-Ahram, the ruler of the day stocked the
paper with loyalists to keep it in line. Under Mubarak, Al-Ahram’s chief
was a close associate of the president. State security often weighed in
on its and state TV’s coverage. Al-Ahram’s newsroom was notorious for
nepotism and favoritism and was influenced by the interests of the
sprawling Al-Ahram conglomerate, which includes a large advertising
agency.

Hamamou, a 20-year veteran at Al-Ahram and a reporter for the
economic section, said she has been appalled by the unprofessionalism.

“There are no lines between editorial and advertising pages,” the
38-year-old said. “According to the documents we got after the
revolution, many journalists got commissions (to write pieces) from the
advertising department — it’s against journalism ethics.”

With Morsi’s inauguration and a freely elected president in place, many in the staff expected reform.
They were disappointed when the Brotherhood appointed a new chief
editor they said had little experience, who turned coverage in the
Islamists’ favor.

Younger journalists staged a sit-in, complete with a tent, in the paper’s lobby and demanded his removal.
The new editor, Abdel-Nasser Salama, fired some reformists appointed
since Mubarak’s fall and brought back editors who had been pushed into
retirement.

Still, the Brotherhood was less successful than the military in
dominating the state media. There were flashes of resistance. In one
case, a presenter on state TV ended his newscast by sarcastically
thanking the presidency for providing the material. Another pulled out a
shroud on air and pronounced she was ready to die rather than obey
Brotherhood directives.

With the military now in charge, these qualms have disappeared and state media resumed lockstep support for those in charge.

Al-Ahram editors saw the direction the wind was blowing even before
Morsi’s exit. On July 1, the day after the first massive rallies against
the president, the paper’s front-page blared, “Morsi: Quit or be Forced
to Quit.”

Hammamo and other staffers saw that as a sure sign that the military,
about to make its move, had told the paper’s management to fall into
line.

“The editor-in-chief wouldn’t have put this if he didn’t have direct information,” she said.

“It is human nature,” she said. “They will be with whoever is the winner.”

The Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of gross distortions of
the truth in its TV and social-media broadcasts, with some of its
messages constituting what one commentator called “a big lie.”

Both
mainstream media and social channels like Facebook and Twitter became
battlegrounds between opposing sides in the unrest that led up to the
ouster of Egypt’s Mohammad Mursi.

Critics point to the
distortions of the truth made by Muslim Brotherhood-linked media, while
accusations of bias have been leveled against Al Jazeera, just as others
have attacked channels such as Al Arabiya and CNN for their coverage.

In
one of the most brazen and alarming cases, the Facebook page of Egypt’s
Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) - the political arm of the Muslim
Brotherhood - displayed images of children killed in Syria claiming they
were victims of the recent unrest in Egypt.

Gamal Zayda, managing editor of the Al Ahram newspaper in Egypt, said
that the Muslim Brotherhood used some images to “benefit their cause.”

“The Muslim brothers know the importance of the image in the western media; they use it to seek sympathy,” he told Al Arabiya.

The
Muslim Brotherhood Facebook page also featured a picture of Egyptian
football player Mohammad Abu Trika, apparently leading a demonstration
against the military council in Cairo. Yet Abu Trika was pictured
wearing winter clothes, in what turned out to be older footage that was
passed off as being current.

“It was a big lie”, said Zayda.

In
another case, the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website last week
posted an article claiming that the new interim president Adly Mansour
is secretly Jewish. It also made other unfounded allegations about him,
such as Mansour being part of a conspiracy to appoint Mohammed
ElBaradei, the former U.N. official and opposition figure, as president,
according to Foreign Policy.

The
article – later removed from the website – “suggests that some elements
of the Muslim Brotherhood may be indulging in conspiracy theories”, the
Washington Post said.

Zayda alleged that the Muslim Brotherhood had recruited young people to criticize him and others via the internet.

“Every column I write I receive tons of emails from Ikhwan [Muslim
Brotherhood members] insulting me; they try very hard to use the social
media to portray a negative image and to destroy their political
rivals; unfortunately for them the media in Egypt is wider than that,”
he said.

Muslim Brotherhood and pro-Mursi TV channels have also been accused of bias.

At
least three Islamist TV stations – including the Muslim Brotherhood’s
Egypt 25 channel, as well as al-Hafiz and al-Nas – were forced off air
by the army in the hours after Mursi was overthrown.

Author and
journalist Abdel Latif el-Menawy, who was head of the Egypt News Center
under ex-president Hosni Mubarak, said such channels lacked balanced and
had helped stir tensions.

“These channels were not dealing in a
proper way,” el-Menawy told Al Arabiya. “They were tools in a fight.
They were completely biased. [They were] creating hatred between Muslims
and Christians, even between Muslims and Muslims.”

Press freedom
groups Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect
Journalists slammed the army’s move to close the TV stations, saying it
constituted a threat to free speech.

Yet while el-Menawy said he
was “against any action that threatens the free media”, he pointed out
that “difficult circumstances” sometimes called for such measures.

Allowing
the channels to start broadcasting again, and then dealing with any
transgressions through proper legal channels is the best way forward,
el-Menawy added. “They should get these channels to work again, and deal
with them legally,” he said.

During their heyday under Mursi,
the Islamist channels were known for hosting guests that made wild
accusations against public figures.

In June the presenter of a
popular TV talk show on the Brotherhood’s Egypt 25 channel accused
several popular figures in the Egyptian media of apostasy and of links
to the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak.

Nourdeddin Abdel Hafiz
even leveled accusations against Amr Mousa, saying the former
presidential candidate worked for a “Zionist company” along with other
remnants of the old regime.

The Al-Hafiz channel also hosted
Mahmoud Shaban, a prominent Islamic professor from Al-Azhar university,
who attacked the popular TV satirist Bassem Youssef.

Youssef had
mocked Shaban on his own show, after the professor apparently refused to
be interviewed by a female TV anchor. On al-Hafiz, Shaban responded to
Youssef, calling him a “ribald” and “hypocrite”. He alleged that Youssef
received funding from Christian groups.

“If you are a man as you
claim to be, and I doubt that, I challenge you to attack the Pope or
any Christian figure… but you get paid by them and their associates, who
manage your channel [CBC] through their advertisements and money,”
Shaban said in his angry response to Youssef.

Mainstream media
channels such as Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera have also been subject to
criticism during the recent events in Egypt.

Several Al Jazeera
employees in Egypt quit their jobs amid concern over the channel’s
alleged bias towards the Muslim Brotherhood and its coverage of Egypt,
with some media reports putting the number at 22. A source at Al Jazeera
told Al Arabiya however that number is “considerably too high”.

A
media expert with access to Al Jazeera’s newsroom said that the
station’s alleged pro-Brotherhood stance is being associated with its
Qatari backers.

“The problem is Al Jazeera has recently cemented
its position as being an instrument of the Qatari government, people
associate it with the Qatari leadership,” the media expert told Al
Arabiya. “While it is true a lot of people are angry with Al Jazeera’s
pro-Brotherhood coverage, many more are really just angry at Qatar as
they feel that nothing has changed with the abdication of the Emir
[Sheikh Hamad] who is still ruling from behind the scenes.”

Al
Jazeera fiercely denies its coverage lacks balance, and said yesterday
in a statement that the channel covers “all angles of events in Egypt
with balance and integrity.”

However, in the following video, Al
Jazeera’s television presenter and interviewer Ahmad Mansour calls for a
counter uprising to the June 30 revolution. The slogan of the
anticipated events, Mansour says, should be the Jan. 25 revolution, and
not reinstating ousted president Mursi.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Syrians Summarily Returned; Registered Asylum Seekers Denied Reentry

July 10, 2013

(New York) – Egypt should allow those fleeing Syria full
access to the UN refugee agency to have their asylum claims properly
examined, and should also allow Syrians already registered with the UN
body to reenter the country after periods abroad, Human Rights Watch
said today.

Without prior warning, on July 8, the Egyptian government changed its
entry policy for Syrians arriving in Egypt by requiring them to obtain a
visa and security clearance before arriving in the country. According
to media reports, on the same day Egypt denied entry to 276 people
arriving from Syria, including a plane with Syrian nationals on board,
who were then flown back to the Syrian town of Latakia.

The new policy
has also left several Syrians stranded in Alexandria’s international
airport, including at least three people already registered as asylum
seekers with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
in Egypt, who say the authorities plan to return them to the countries
from which they arrived.

“Egypt may be going through tumultuous times, but it must not return
anyone, including Syrians, to somewhere threatening their life or
freedom,” said Nadim Houry, deputy
Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “While the Egyptian
government can require foreign nationals to obtain visas before arriving
in Egypt, it must properly protect them. Egypt should continue to allow
those fleeing from Syria to lodge asylum claims with UNHCR and receive
protection.”

To date, UNHCR in Egypt has registered, or is in the process of registering, some 90,000 asylum seekers from Syria.

On its official Facebook page,
Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that a new visa policy
had been implemented but said the decision was temporary, and a result
of the current unrest in the country. According to one media account,
airport officials also said that the new requirement followed reports
that Syrians in Egypt were supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, and that
some had participated in violent protests following President Mohamed
Morsy’s removal from power.

Under international refugee and human rights law, the Egyptian
government may not send anyone back to a place threatening their life or
freedom, or where they risk inhuman or degrading treatment or torture.
Before deporting anyone to Syria, Egypt should therefore guarantee all
asylum seekers from Syria access to UNHCR which, under a 1954 agreement
with Egypt, conducts refugee status determination procedures in the
country.

Egypt should also guarantee the right of all Syrians already registered
as asylum seekers in Egypt to freely move in and out of the country.
Human Rights Watch said that refusing such people reentry into Egypt
after travel abroad would expose them to the risk of getting stuck in
limbo, with no country allowing them entry.

Two Syrians told Human Rights Watch that they’ve been trapped at
Alexandria’s international airport since July 8, despite being
registered as asylum seekers with UNHCR in Egypt.

One woman who spoke to
Human Rights Watch explained that she’d been residing in Egypt with her
family for nearly six months, but that she recently had to travel with
her mother to renew their passports in Amman, Jordan. After renewing
their passports, they returned to Egypt from Amman. But when they
arrived at the airport in Alexandria on July 8, an airport official
informed them they would not be allowed into the country because of the
new visa rules – despite the fact that they are registered asylum
seekers.

In addition to her fear of being separated from her family, including
her three daughters and husband who reside in Alexandria, the woman told
Human Rights Watch that she was concerned about her mother’s health.
She said her mother suffers from diabetes and that she was running out
of the medication she needs to manage her condition. According to the
daughter, her mother requested to see a doctor in the airport, and while
one was provided for her, he was not able to give her the medication
she needs.

Under international human rights law, Egypt is obliged to protect the
right to health of everyone within its territory, including ensuring, as
a core minimum obligation, access to essential medication.

A Syrian man, who also told Human Rights Watch that he is registered as
an asylum seeker with UNHCR in Egypt, was also being held in Alexandria
airport. He said he came to Egypt from Saudi Arabia, where he works, to
see his family members who have resided in Egypt for the past seven
months. He said airport officials told him that he would not be allowed
entry because of the new visa rules, and that he would be returned to
Saudi Arabia.

“While Egypt is going through a very difficult period, it simply should
not strand Syrians this way, especially those who have fled such a
devastating conflict at home,” Houry said.

He also appointed former United Nations nuclear agency
chief Mohamed ElBaradei as deputy to the president, responsible for
foreign affairs, spokesman Ahmed El-Musalamani said.

Unlike
Monday, which was wracked by attacks that killed 51 people, Tuesday was
calmer. Military officials warned political groups against factionalism
that would hurt the political transition from ousted president Mohammed
Morsi to Mansour.

Mansour's declaration replaces the nation's
suspended constitution, which was drafted by an Islamist-dominated body
before it was approved in a nationwide vote last year despite lack of
consensus among political groups.
The
33-article declaration will remain the country's ruling document until a
new constitution is voted in – possibly in about four months.

"Human
rights and democracy were not at the forefront for the drafters of this
constitutional declaration," said Ziad Abdel Tawab, deputy director of
the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.

The 2012
constitution will be revised in the interim period, which could see
parliamentary and presidential elections completed by the spring of
2014.

For now, the constitutional declaration rules, disappointing some and worrying others in Egypt.
"If
your standard is the best level of democracy in the world … this is
very worrying, and there are serious problems" said Zaid Al-Ali, senior
adviser on constitution building at the International Institute for
Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Cairo.

He noted that the
whole spirit of the text is in keeping with Egyptian constitutional
tradition – for better or worse. "I would say worse," he said.

When
the revolution started, "we had very high hopes for what democracy in
this country could be, and it looks like although improvements have been
made it doesn't look like it will be to the extent that we originally
hoped," said Al-Ali, who is Iraqi.

One concern is that the
president holds almost all executive and legislative powers until a
parliament is elected. It is unclear when presidential elections will
take place, Al-Ali said.

There are also human rights concerns.

Freedom
of expression is restricted, and the right to freedom of association is
rolled back, affecting non-governmental groups, Abdel Tawab said. The
declaration also restricts rights such as freedom of religion, similar
to the 2012 constitution.

The wording of the new document is
similar to a constitutional declaration issued in March 2011 when the
country was under military rule after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, said
Heba Morayef, the Egypt director of Human Rights Watch.

In this
declaration, a provision will allow for military trials of civilians to
continue, Morayef said. Instead of spelling out rights, the document
states they are guaranteed "in accordance with the law" – not providing
constitutional protection.

"It is worrying in the sense that I
don't see these rights provisions as setting a check on whatever
legislation we may end up with in the next period," Morayef said.

Opposition
movement spokesperson Mahmoud Badr said opposition leader ElBaradei,
along with a legal expert, plans to propose amendments to the
declaration to the presidency, Egyptian news media reported.

For liberal-minded Egyptians, a concern is that the document entrenches sharia
by defining the "principles" of Islamic law that are collectively the
main source of legislation. The wording has long been a hot-button issue
as liberals insisted that "principles" should not be defined, so
interpretations can be flexible.

"It was one of the controversial
clauses that the liberals objected to in the previous constitution,"
said political analyst Mazen Hassan in Cairo. "And there are things that
if you give, you can't take away. It will be a fight for the liberals
to take it out."

Hassan said the clause is a prize for Egypt's
Salafis, an ultraconservative portion of the population who practice a
seventh-century interpretation of Islam and embrace a restrictive vision
of sharia.

"Any route we take, the next period will not be
stable and will not be a period where we see all factions agree on the
same thing," Hassan said.

Abdel Tawab said the declaration is worrying especially given that it is unclear who is responsible for the country.

"Accountability
and end of impunity is at the heart of a democratic transformation," he
said, but as long as no one knows whether President Mansour or Defense
Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is really in charge, there can be an
endless cycle of violence and rights violations.

Rows of dead
bodies lined a makeshift morgue Monday after security forces fired on
Islamist demonstrators in clashes that killed more than 50 people,
prompting calls for an impartial investigation.

The
military-installed government arrested members of the media as well as
Muslim Brotherhood figures, including Morsi who has been detained
incommunicado for several days. Monday, Human Rights Watch said at least
15 other Brotherhood leaders and members were detained.

Authorities shut down several Islamist television stations after Morsi was ousted from power.

"Without
strict respect for the rule of law and basic rights from the start,
there will be no political freedom," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East
and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, in a recent statement.

Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights

The
undersigned organizations express their deep regret and strong
condemnation of the excessive force used by army and security forces
against supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi who were staging a
sit-in in front of the premises of the Republican Guard. This violence
left at least 51 dead and over 400 injured, according to official
statements from the Ministry of Health.

The
undersigned organizations insist that responses to demonstrations must
be comply with international standards, even if demonstrations witness
violence or the use of firearms. International standards do not allow
the excessive use of lethal force, nor do they justify the intentional
murder of large numbers of protestors by snipers belonging to police or
military forces. The use of force must not exceed what required to
prevent the use of violence by armed individuals. Such standards apply
to the incident described above, which was referred to in a statement by
the Armed Forces as an attempt to storm the premises of the Republican
Guard.

The
undersigned organizations emphasize that security forces and the army
bear a responsibility to provide protection to all protestors, including
both supporters and opponents of the deposed president.

At
the same time, the undersigned organizations strongly condemn the
ongoing incitement to violence and killing by the Muslim Brotherhood and
its supporters as well as their incitement to participate in widespread
clashes, which only serve to further deepen the political crisis in
Egypt. We condemn all forms of violence committed by some segments of
Islamist groups, including the violence committed in Manial and Maspero
areas of Cairo and in the Sidi Gaber area in Alexandria.

We
also condemn the violations which have targeted the Muslim Brotherhood
and its supporters in Sidi Beshr, El Zagazig, and elsewhere, as well as
the incitement against them by some media outlets.

The
undersigned organizations stress the need to expose the truth of what
happened during that clashes that occurred at dawn yesterday and to hold
all parties which were involved to account. We stress that a fair,
independent investigation into this massacre will require the
participation of independent human rights organizations and the
immediate release of the findings to the public. The participation of
such organizations is particularly critical in light of the
politicization of the Egyptian judiciary under the rule of both Mubarak
and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and in the wake of the
practices of the Muslim Brotherhood and the deposed president over the
last year which further undermined the credibility of the judiciary and
the investigating authorities, dividing judges and making the judiciary a
victim of political and ideological polarization.

The
investigating committee should be comprised of judicial and rights
figures known for their professionalism and impartiality, in order to
win the respect of all parties and avoid challenges to its final report.
We urge all parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood and its
partisans, to support and welcome this demand.

Once
again, we urge that all forms of incitement to violence and murder must
cease and that all parties must refrain from undermining the civic
peace. The continued incitement to bloodshed will make it practically
impossible to re-launch a comprehensive political process leading to the
fulfillment of the revolution's goals in Egypt.

The Telegraph

The grainy film captures the soldier as he shoots from his vantage point on
top of the yellow stone building.

He fires more than once and then, suddenly, turns the rifle and points toward
the camera lens.

The film ends – and so too ended the life of Ahmed Samir Assem.

The 26-year-old photographer for Egypt’s Al-Horia Wa Al-Adala newspaper was
among a least 51 people killed after security forces opened fire on a large
crowd that had camped outside the Egyptian army’s Republican Guard officers’
club in Cairo, where Mohammed Morsi, the deposed president, was believed to
be in detention.

Mr Assem had been on the scene as the pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters knelt
for prayer shortly before dawn on Monday morning.

According to friends and relatives, the moment of his own death was captured
as the grainy film culminates.

News of Mr Assem’s death filtered through after his bloodied camera and mobile
phone were found at the site of the makeshift camp.

“At around 6am, a man came into the media centre with a camera covered in
blood and told us that one of our colleagues had been injured,” said Ahmed
Abu Zeid, the culture editor of Mr Assem’s newspaper, who was working from a
facility set up next to the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, about a mile away.

“Around an hour later, I received news that Ahmed had been shot by a sniper in
the forehead while filming or taking pictures on top of the buildings around
the incident.

“Ahmed’s camera was the only one which filmed the entire incident from the
first moment.

“He had started filming from the beginning of the prayers so he captured the
very beginnings and in the video, you can see tens of victims. Ahmed’s
camera will remain a piece of evidence in the violations that have been
committed.”

Like much else about Monday’s incident, the exact circumstances of the
shooting are hard to prove. However, other witnesses to whom The Daily
Telegraph spoke have described snipers being stationed on buildings
overlooking the site, which is in an area dominated by military
installations.

Excerpts of a 20-minute video said to have been recorded by Mr Assem as the
horror unfolded in front of him were shown at a Muslim Brotherhood press
conference and are now being touted as evidence of a massacre on the streets
of Egypt’s capital.

The other video, which purports to show the final seconds before Mr Assem was
shot, have now been put on to his Facebook page, although the provenance of
it could not be independently verified by The Daily Telegraph.

What is certain, friends say, is that Mr Assem has left a vivid testimony of
events whose origins have been hotly disputed. Mr Morsi’s supporters say
they were fired on from behind without provocation while they were praying.
The army insists that security forces only fired after protesters attempted
to storm the Republican Guard facility.

There have also been suggestions that the original firing may have come from
agents provocateurs, triggering a wave of violence.

Whatever the truth, the Muslim Brotherhood says Mr Assem’s last film bears out
its version of events and says it plans to use it as evidence — though it
had not responded to requests for a physical copy by the time of
publication.

However, Mr Assem’s brother, Eslam, 29, said the footage’s last seconds showed
a soldier shooting demonstrators from a roof. The soldier then turned his
gun towards Mr Assem and the film suddenly went dead, he added.

Colleagues described Mr Assem, a graduate of Cairo University’s communications
department, as a dedicated professional who had amassed an archive of 10,000
photographs since starting his career as a photographer three years ago.

His work for Al-Horia Wa Al-Adala — the official newspaper of the Freedom and
Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing — put him in the
front line of Egypt’s political turmoil. It had also put him at odds with
his family, who were supporters of the late Egyptian nationalist leader,
Gamal Abdal Nasser.

As Mr Assem’s friends and family mourned, Adly Mansour, Egypt’s new interim
president, unveiled a draft constitution to replace the one drafted by
Islamists and suspended last week. A committee will be set up to make final
improvements to the document before it is put to a referendum. Parliamentary
elections will then follow within three months and a date for a presidential
election will be set once the parliament has convened.

Mr Mansour also named Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN atomic
energy watchdog, as vice-president in charge of foreign affairs and Hazem
al-Beblawi, a former finance minister, as prime minister.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Investigate Criminal Violence; Detain Only Based on law

July 8, 2013

(New York) – Egypt’s
military-installed government should end its arbitrary acts against the
Muslim Brotherhood and the news media, Human Rights Watch said today.
Since Defense Minister General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi announced the removal
of President Mohamed Morsy from power on the night of July 3, the
authorities have detained Muslim Brotherhood leaders, apparently solely
on the basis of their membership in the group, sealed off Brotherhood
buildings, and closed down its TV station and other stations sympathetic
to the organization.

The military has also arrested the deposed president himself and at
least ten members of his team and kept them in incommunicado detention
for four days, unable to speak with their families or lawyer.

The
military has not confirmed where they are currently held, nor formally
charged them with any recognizable offenses or brought them before a
judge. The military should release the former president and his aides
unless prosecutors have evidence that they committed a cognizable crime
under Egyptian law, Human Rights Watch said. Any such charges should not
contradict the internationally recognized rights to free expression and
peaceful association.

“Both General al-Sisi and interim President Adli Mansour promised that
the political transition process would be inclusive , but these
violations of basic political rights will mean the Muslim Brotherhood
and others will be shut out of political life,” said Joe Stork,
deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“Without strict respect for the rule of law and basic rights from the
start there will be no political freedom.”

Security officials have so far arrested at least six other members of
the ousted ruling Freedom and Justice Party, and prosecutors have
ordered their detention on charges of incitement to violence and others
with insulting the judiciary. Prosecutors have issued arrest warrants
for hundreds of other members of the group.

The Egyptian authorities should immediately announce that they – and
all state officials, including members of the army and security forces –
will be bound by the existing law, and respect basic rights of all Egyptians, Human Rights Watch said.

Just moments after al-Sisi’s July 3, 2013 speech announcing the
army’s ouster of Mohamed Morsy as president of Egypt, security agencies
halted the broadcast of five TV stations and arrested the journalists on
site. The journalists were released over the next two days but the
stations remain shuttered.

In a July 6 interview
with the state Middle East News Agency, Social Affairs Minister Nagwa
Khalil said that with the constitution suspended her ministry had the
authority to order the closure of nongovernmental groups.

She said she
had instructed her ministry to study dissolving the Muslim Brotherhood,
which is registered under Law 84 as a nongovernmental organization, on
the grounds that it has a “militia wing.” On July 7, the Freedom and
Justice Party issued a news release stating that security forces had
sealed off its offices in downtown Cairo without a court order. The
action was a blatant violation of freedom of association, Human Rights
Watch said.

Prosecutors have told Egyptian media that they are investigating
members of the Muslim Brotherhood for their role in the deaths of
anti-Morsy protesters in clashes outside the Brotherhood party headquarters in Moqattam on June 30, the clashes near Cairo University on July 2, the clashes
outside Ettihadiya in December 2012, as well as the January 2011 prison
breaks in which Morsy and other Brotherhood leaders fled detention.

Egypt is in desperate need of justice for past crimes but
investigations should be independent of any political interference or
the appearance of partiality, Human Rights Watch said. Anyone who has
committed serious crimes, whether police, military, or Brotherhood
should be held accountable.

With Egypt’s constitution suspended, there is a vacuum when it comes
to the protection of fundamental rights. But Egypt is not under a state
of emergency, and has not derogated from any of its international
obligations. As a result, authorities are bound to respect fully the
right to freedom of association and speech, and due process rights that
protect against arbitrary arrest, Human Rights Watch said. Authorities
should not act as if they have been given new powers to interfere with
basic rights.

The Egyptian daily Al Shorouk reported that Mansour will issue
a new constitutional declaration in the coming days. It is vitally
important for this declaration to bind the government and all state
officials to respect completely all rights that apply in Egypt, Human
Rights Watch said.

“After a year of protracted struggle between the judiciary and the
Muslim Brotherhood, the last thing Egypt needs is the appearance of
arbitrary and partisan arrests and prosecutions,” Stork said.
“Prosecutors should be doubly careful to avoid that perception, be
transparent about the evidence they have to issue arrest warrants, and
ensure that due process rights are respected.”

Arrests and Criminal Investigations of Brotherhood Leaders

The military is detaining at least 10 members of Morsy’s presidential
team at the presidential guard quarters in Cairo, relatives and friends
told Human Rights Watch. The military has not made public the legal
basis for their detention, nor whether they have been charged with
anything.

A Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, Gehad al-Haddad, who has not
been detained, tweeted on July 4 that President Morsy had been separated
from the rest of his team and was being held at the Defense Ministry.
Those being detained include Essam al-Haddad, who had been an assistant
to the president; Khaled al-Qazzaz, who had been secretary for
international affairs; Ayman Ali; Ahmed Abdelaty and at least six
others.

On July 4, Al Ahramreported
that the Office of the Public Prosecutor had issued arrest warrants for
300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood. To Human Rights Watch’s
knowledge, police have thus far arrested six leaders of the group and
prosecutors have ordered their pretrial detention and interrogated them
on charges of inciting violence.

Assistant Prosecutor Adel al Said told
the Egyptian daily Al Tahrir that the public prosecutor had
placed 35 Muslim Brotherhood leaders on a travel ban list on charges of
inciting violence. He was reported to have said that those on the list
included Morsy; the deputy Brotherhood guide Khairat al Shatir; Mahmoud
Ghozlan, and former members of parliament Essam el Erian, Sobhi Daleh,
and Saad al- Hosseini, among others.

On July 5, the military spokesman issued a statement
claiming that, “The armed forces have not arrested or detained any
individual in Egypt for political reasons” and calling on Egyptians to
“exercise caution when spreading information about the military since
this can be sold internationally” and “exploited for political reasons
to tarnish the situation of freedoms in Egypt.”

There has been little transparency about the overall number of those
arrested, on what charges, and what evidence prosecutors have to justify
a detention order, Human Rights Watch said. Acting Prosecutor General
Abdelmeguid Mahmoud is the Mubarak-era prosecutor whom Morsy had
dismissed on November 22.

Mahmoud returned as acting prosecutor a few
days before Morsy’s ouster. Mahmoud’s record
as head of the Office of the Public Prosecutor for years under Mubarak
and his very public opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood in the
aftermath of his dismissal does not inspire confidence in the
impartiality of his initiatives, Human Rights Watch said.

Detentions, criminal investigations and prosecutions should occur
only on the basis of evidence in relation to recognized crimes such as
direct incitement to or participation in violence, Human Rights Watch
said. Such actions should not be based on spurious charges related to
peaceful speech such as insulting the judiciary, or charges that violate
free association, such as membership in an organization.

While some Brotherhood leaders may have made public statements that
amount to incitement to violence, for which they could be lawfully
prosecuted, this mass arrest of most senior Brotherhood leaders appears
to be politically-motivated, based solely on their membership in the
group, Human Rights Watch said.

Prosecutors also announced that they were investigating the killing of protesters during the December 5, 2012 Ettihadiya protests
outside the presidential palace, and the June 30 killings during an
attack on the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters.

Any investigation into
what happened at Ettihadiya should include the killing and injuries to
both Muslim Brotherhood and anti-Morsy demonstrators, but also the role
of Muslim Brotherhood members in the detention and abuse of 49
protesters in front of the presidential palace gate 4 and the violent
clashes that night. The public prosecutor has a duty to ensure that he
carries out his duties in an impartial manner, Human Rights Watch said.

Of those arrested, prosecutors have ordered the release so far of
only al-Katatny, the party leader, and Bayoumy, the Brotherhood deputy
guide. The Interior Ministry did not carry out the release orders,
though because prosecutors ordered their detention for 15 days pending
interrogation on further charges. The deputy interior minister for
prisons, Gen. Mostafa Baz, told the Egyptian daily Al Masry al Youm
on July 5 that security officers had arrested the chief Muslim
Brotherhood lawyer, Abdelmoneim Abdelmaqsud, when he appeared before
prosecutors as Bayoumi’s legal counsel during his interrogation.

The report said that Tora prison guards arrested the lawyer because
of an outstanding arrest warrant in his name on charges of “insulting
the judiciary” and inciting violence. “Insulting the judiciary” cannot
be considered a criminal offense, and prosecution on those grounds would
be a violation of the right to freedom of expression, Human Rights
Watch said.

Media Closures

A few minutes after General al-Sissi announced on July 3 that Morsy had
been removed as president and the constitution had been suspended, the
screens of the Muslim Brotherhood TV station, Misr 25, went
blank.

The station’s program director, Mosaad Barbary, told Human Rights
Watch that special forces dressed in black stormed into the studio and
arrested him along with 22 other journalists and detained them
overnight, releasing a day-and-a-half later.

Security forces halted the broadcast of at least four other channels
at the same time, including three known for their Salafi programming:
El-Naas, El-Rahma, and Khaligiyya. The Interior Ministry later claimed
that these stations were inciting violence but did not provide any
evidence or seek a court order.

If the authorities have grounds to believe that individual
journalists or broadcasters are inciting violence, they should charge
those individuals, Human Rights Watch said. Shutting down a station by
executive order is an arbitrary measure that appears totally
disproportionate to any crimes committed by individuals, and may
constitute collective punishment, violating people’s right to freedom of
information and opinion.

On July 4, state censors banned that day’s second edition of Freedom and Justice,
the party newspaper, and on July 6 the newspaper said that the
state-owned Ahram printing house had limited its distribution to 10,000
copies.

On July 3, the military and police raided
the offices of Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera Mubashir Misr, seizing
cameras and transmission equipment. They arrested managing director
Ayman Gaballah, accusing him of operating without a proper license, and
the studio engineer, Ahmad Hassan, and detained them for two days. On
July 5, prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Al Jazeera Arabic
Bureau Cheif Abdelfattah Fayed on charges of undermining public peace by
broadcasting “incendiary news.”Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members arrested:

Detained incommunicado, believed to be at Defense Ministry

1. Mohamed Morsy, former president;

Detained incommunicado by military, presumed to be at Presidential Guard headquarters

2. Essam al-Haddad, former assistant to the president for international affairs;

3. Khaled al-Qazzaz, secretary to the president for international affairs;

4. Ahmed Abdelaty;

5. Abdelmeguid al-Meshaly;

6. Ayman Ali;

7. Rifaa al-Tahtawy, chief of staff;

8. Ayman al-Serafy;

9. Ayman Hudhod, adviser for ministerial affairs;

10. Asaad El-Sheikha, deputy chief of staff;

In pretrial detention in Tora Prison, under interrogation on charges of incitement to violence